AZ State’s Osweiler Hurting Draft Stock?

The NFL Combine is an opportunity for young college ballers to show what they have to top NFL scouts, owners, coaches, and GM’s.  A bad 40 yard dash can cost a player hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Run a poor shuttle time, throw bad passes, drop a bunch of passes…check, check, check.  Stock drops.  The same can also be said when you are a borderline talent who decides not to participate in the events at all.  Like Arizona State QB, Brock Osweiler.

Osweiler is telling the media that he has a sprained foot and will not be throwing.  According to OZ he hurt the foot in AZ’s bowl game loss.  Profootballtalk.com says it’s the first anyone has heard of it.  O.k so fine, you have a bum foot and will join Ryan Tannehill who really does have a foot injury, RGIII, and Andrew Luck as sideline watchers this week at the Combine meat market.

The interesting thing here is that Osweiler isn’t just skipping the run and pass portions of the Combine, he is skipping all of the events.  Yes, as PFT points out, even those where his draft stock wouldn’t be hurt…like the bench press that was open for QB’s today.  This is an interesting development for a QB who needed a solid Combine to advance his stock up the ladder.  Some mock drafts had the Miami Dolphins actually considering Osweiler with their number 8 pick while others believe that he would be a possible selection for the team in round 2…have to love mock drafts.

The question here is what is up with Osweiler and why would he decide to skip all drills?  Surely he has been informed by his agent that skipping the Combine drills could potentially cost him a lot of money, of course it also could be likely that his agent is the one who is telling him to stay out.  The question either way is “why?”

The Combine is in place to help the middle of the road guys gain ground and show that they are ready for the next level and a lot of teams put stock and value into who shows up and works out and who does not.  There are some GM’s that refuse to draft players who refuse to work out at the Combine without a legit reason.  In fact, NFL guy said that if a player doesn’t want to participate in the Combine drills then that is fine, stay home and let everyone wait until your pro-day.

For now, Osweiler’s story about his bum foot will have to be enough to placate the delegates from the 32 NFL teams.  It’s also going to have to serve as a reminder to him why his check may be a lot lower than he had originally hoped for.  In the NFL, players are expected to play when they are sick or when they are in pain.  Skipping drills that you can do, may not look appealing to those executives who make the decisions.